Bus Travel In Laos
Traveling in Third World countries almost always means traveling by bus. While trains are sometimes a luxury, and air flights are always an expensive punch away, traveling across these developing nations is best done on the bus at least some of the time, as it gives you a sense of who the local travelers in the country are, and makes it feel more authentic. As anyone knows who has done it before, buses in other countries are rarely as we think of them in the USA, Australia, or other nations. Buses in third world countries are the vital lifebloods that transport goods and people throughout them, and taking a journey on one of them is almost always a guaranteed adventure. This trip was to prove no exception.
Let's Go To Laos
When planning the trip, one thing that I kept reading about over and over again was "THE BUS FROM HELL", the collective name for horror stories on the route from Da Nang, Vietnam, to Savannakhet, Laos. Tales abounded of buses breaking down in the middle of nowhere, drivers extorting money from western passengers, buses taking twice or three times as long to arrive. Our own friend Justin ended up suffering through 35 hours on this bus on a trip that was supposed to take 14. I really didn't want to end up on that bus, so I went to a travel agent and prepared to do some negotiations.
Da Nang and Pakse are reasonably the same level of latitude, but between the two of them are several large ranges of mountains, covered in some of Southeast Asia's most pristine remaining jungles. So travel between them is done via one of two routes: the Northern track, from Da Nang to Hue, across the border at Lao Bao, and thence to Savannakhet; and the Southern track, from Da Nang to Ngoc Hoi (Kontum Province), and then across the border at Bo Y and thence to Attapeu and Pakse. The Northern track is the one that is referred to as The Bus From Hell, so I was eager to try and book a bus trip on the Southern route, as it was only supposed to take between 10 and 12 hours.
The problem was, I couldn't find the route listed on any bus company's routes. And while people on the internet swore up and down they had taken it and it existed, I wasn't having luck finding it advertised. The first couple of places I went tried to book me on that Bus From Hell, but finally on my third try I found a guy who was willing to work a little bit. I had brought a map, and between with my broken Vietnamese and his broken English over the course of about 30 minutes I (thought) I had two tickets on the Southern Route. Although he ripped me off, I felt good enough about securing the Southern Track that I didn't let it bother me.
Our tickets called for us to get on the bus at 6 am, and we were there. However, as we started out of the station, I realized that we were most definitely headed NORTH, not south. We were the only people on a full size sleeper bus, so I asked the driver if we were going to Hue, not Kontum, and he confirmed this. My worst fear was realized. Exactly what I didn't want and actively tried to avoid had come to fruition: We were on The Bus From Hell. S&$t.
Things didn't go better after that, as we soon arrived in Hue, and switched from being the only passengers on a new sleeper coach to getting jammed in the back of an aging sleeper coach packed full with Vietnamese and Laotian, and all manner of cargo. Kelsey and I ended up wedged next to several large bags of mushrooms and boxes of plastic cups. As is common, there was rows of people laying in the aisles, sometimes two deep. Who knows how many people were on that bus, but they certainly would have taken more.
Da Nang and Pakse are reasonably the same level of latitude, but between the two of them are several large ranges of mountains, covered in some of Southeast Asia's most pristine remaining jungles. So travel between them is done via one of two routes: the Northern track, from Da Nang to Hue, across the border at Lao Bao, and thence to Savannakhet; and the Southern track, from Da Nang to Ngoc Hoi (Kontum Province), and then across the border at Bo Y and thence to Attapeu and Pakse. The Northern track is the one that is referred to as The Bus From Hell, so I was eager to try and book a bus trip on the Southern route, as it was only supposed to take between 10 and 12 hours.
The problem was, I couldn't find the route listed on any bus company's routes. And while people on the internet swore up and down they had taken it and it existed, I wasn't having luck finding it advertised. The first couple of places I went tried to book me on that Bus From Hell, but finally on my third try I found a guy who was willing to work a little bit. I had brought a map, and between with my broken Vietnamese and his broken English over the course of about 30 minutes I (thought) I had two tickets on the Southern Route. Although he ripped me off, I felt good enough about securing the Southern Track that I didn't let it bother me.
Our tickets called for us to get on the bus at 6 am, and we were there. However, as we started out of the station, I realized that we were most definitely headed NORTH, not south. We were the only people on a full size sleeper bus, so I asked the driver if we were going to Hue, not Kontum, and he confirmed this. My worst fear was realized. Exactly what I didn't want and actively tried to avoid had come to fruition: We were on The Bus From Hell. S&$t.
Things didn't go better after that, as we soon arrived in Hue, and switched from being the only passengers on a new sleeper coach to getting jammed in the back of an aging sleeper coach packed full with Vietnamese and Laotian, and all manner of cargo. Kelsey and I ended up wedged next to several large bags of mushrooms and boxes of plastic cups. As is common, there was rows of people laying in the aisles, sometimes two deep. Who knows how many people were on that bus, but they certainly would have taken more.
Our first adventure came at the Lao Bao border crossing. We were the only whiteys on the bus, and we were doing visas-on-arrival for our trip, so we knew we needed to be on our shit and hurry through customs and immigration as quick as possible so the people on the bus didn't get upset waiting for us. We tried to hurry as fast as we could, but we were still at least fifteen minutes later than everyone else, and sure enough, the bus didn't wait for us to get through and took off, with our bags still on board.
At this point Kelsey started having a minor freakout, so I said we need to hop on a couple of xe oms and keep going until we caught up to the bus. We did, and made it five minutes down the road and came around a corner to find the bus waiting a restaurant. No comments were made nor did it look like anyone even noticed we were there or not. Kels and I figured that they probably would have waited until everyone was done with lunch and then if we hadn't of showed up they probably would have taken off. Needless to say it was a bit jarring and a not-so-subtle reminder of how you need to be on your toes.
At this point Kelsey started having a minor freakout, so I said we need to hop on a couple of xe oms and keep going until we caught up to the bus. We did, and made it five minutes down the road and came around a corner to find the bus waiting a restaurant. No comments were made nor did it look like anyone even noticed we were there or not. Kels and I figured that they probably would have waited until everyone was done with lunch and then if we hadn't of showed up they probably would have taken off. Needless to say it was a bit jarring and a not-so-subtle reminder of how you need to be on your toes.
Once back on the bus, the monotony and misery of traveling across eastern Laos by bus quickly became apparent. Rough roads, rough bridges, construction, local highway traffic (read: cows). The hours began to drag on and on, and following along with my map I quickly realized we were not making quick progress at all. Our itinerary was through to Pakse, and we were quoted as a 12 hour trip from Da Nang to Pakse, and at some point in Laos I realized it was going to be 13 to 14 hours to Savannakhet, let alone the supposed "5 hours" further to Pakse. The bus crew and it's passengers were giving us dirty looks and we were feeling extremely unwelcome on the bus. So we huddled up and decided that rather than try and continue with our original plan, that we would just switch everything around. So, we bailed at the bus stop 30 kilometers east of Savannakhet, caught an Indonesian tour bus into the city and got a hotel, glad to finally be off The Bus To Hell. All told we were on the bus for about 13 and a half hours, and had only made about 70% of what was supposed to be a 12 hour-total trip. Lesson learned.
Waiting With the Monks Next to a Broken Bus
Not to be outdone, our next bus ride turned out to be just as fun. This time we were on the "5 hour tour" from Savannakhet to Pakse. Seemed relatively straightforward, anyway: a fairly newer highway, not too many kilometers, and a nice spring day to travel in. Our first tip off that this wasn't to be a "simple" ride was before we even left, when we saw our bus crew loading jug after jug after jug of water onto the back and roof of the bus. I was a bit perplexed until we stopped approximately 30 minutes down the road, and they hopped out to pour one of the jugs of water over the engine, and then hopped back on the bus and we were on our way. Ahhhh. Mystery solved. We kept cruising down the road, stopping more frequently as we pulled closer to Pakse, agonizingly slow with all the stops.
Finally, the completely unsurprising happened: the engine blew up. Well, it didn't blow up, but it blew something, that's for sure. I had been fortunate enough to be sitting in the back, directly above the hatch to the engine, so that when it exploded, it sent oil all over the back of my legs. And soon we ended up stuck on the side of the road, dead in the water. First they poured all the remaining water on engine, then secured water from a nearby farm, poured more water on it, and we took off again, only to stop about 90 seconds down the road. At this point we all got off the bus and it was time to wait. The whole trip we had been sitting next to and behind a monk and his young disciple, and so we ended up sitting on the side of a highway in Lao with some monks.
Finally, the completely unsurprising happened: the engine blew up. Well, it didn't blow up, but it blew something, that's for sure. I had been fortunate enough to be sitting in the back, directly above the hatch to the engine, so that when it exploded, it sent oil all over the back of my legs. And soon we ended up stuck on the side of the road, dead in the water. First they poured all the remaining water on engine, then secured water from a nearby farm, poured more water on it, and we took off again, only to stop about 90 seconds down the road. At this point we all got off the bus and it was time to wait. The whole trip we had been sitting next to and behind a monk and his young disciple, and so we ended up sitting on the side of a highway in Lao with some monks.
But soon enough a new bus was secured, and apart from the poor couple sitting in front of us who had to sit in the broken gimpy seats, we made it to Pakse just before dark. So, a 7 hour trip instead of a 5 hour one, but all in all it didn't end up hurting us too bad.
Back to Vietnam
The last part of our trip, the return leg to Vietnam, turned out to be the most random and unexpected, but somehow turned out to be the smoothest of our long hauls. Unfortunately, our camera had died at this point and we were unable to capture some photos. Whilst in Tad Lo, we discovered that there was a bus station in Attapeu run by a Vietnamese family that every Vietnam-bound bus stopped at, as the stretch from Attapeu to Vietnam went through a long and serious chunk of mountain jungle. And I felt reliable comfortable to expect the "daily bus at 11:00" to bank on it. So after securing an extremely over-priced shuttle from Tad Lo three and a half hours to Attapeu, we were off and running. The drive around the northeastern and eastern sides of the Bolaven was beautiful, and seeing the towns of Salavan and Xe Kong was interesting.
Soon, we were at the resturant in Attapeu, and basically stepped off our shuttle and were promptly whisked onto a "sandwich loaf" 25 passenger van that just happened to be idling and waiting for passengers to go to 'Nam. This took off soon enough and after a few hours of driving through the epicness that is Dong Ampham National Park in Lao, a protected chunk of the Truong Son Mountain Jungle complex, we were at Bo Y Border Crossing, and after twenty minutes, back inside Vietnam. The sandwich loaf bus took us as far as the town of Plei Can, in Ngoc Hoi district and about an hour north of Kontum. Here we hopped off the sandwich bus that was headed to Kontum (south) and talked about the possibility of staying a night here and trying to figure out travel plans to get home the next day. However, we soon went outside, waved down the next open tour bus, and were soon on another sleeper bus that was supposedly headed for Da Nang.
Although we spent the next five hours winding up and down the Ho Chi Minh Highway, we did indeed soon near Da Nang. After we hopped on the bus and got a taxi home, we realized we had gone from Tad Lo, Laos, to Da Nang, Vietnam in just over 10 hours, via a whole random network of unplanned and unexpected rides. Sometimes you try to plan out your trips and you end up on The Bus To Hell, and sometimes you just wing it and everything goes smooth. If only there was any consistency to bank on, but the uncertainty and excitement from traveling on the bus is a rewarding experience, and sometimes it's just worth it to just "go for it" and ride it.
Soon, we were at the resturant in Attapeu, and basically stepped off our shuttle and were promptly whisked onto a "sandwich loaf" 25 passenger van that just happened to be idling and waiting for passengers to go to 'Nam. This took off soon enough and after a few hours of driving through the epicness that is Dong Ampham National Park in Lao, a protected chunk of the Truong Son Mountain Jungle complex, we were at Bo Y Border Crossing, and after twenty minutes, back inside Vietnam. The sandwich loaf bus took us as far as the town of Plei Can, in Ngoc Hoi district and about an hour north of Kontum. Here we hopped off the sandwich bus that was headed to Kontum (south) and talked about the possibility of staying a night here and trying to figure out travel plans to get home the next day. However, we soon went outside, waved down the next open tour bus, and were soon on another sleeper bus that was supposedly headed for Da Nang.
Although we spent the next five hours winding up and down the Ho Chi Minh Highway, we did indeed soon near Da Nang. After we hopped on the bus and got a taxi home, we realized we had gone from Tad Lo, Laos, to Da Nang, Vietnam in just over 10 hours, via a whole random network of unplanned and unexpected rides. Sometimes you try to plan out your trips and you end up on The Bus To Hell, and sometimes you just wing it and everything goes smooth. If only there was any consistency to bank on, but the uncertainty and excitement from traveling on the bus is a rewarding experience, and sometimes it's just worth it to just "go for it" and ride it.
All photos copyright Kit Davidson unless otherwise noted.